Wednesday, July 22, 2009

I'm Just A Soul Whose Intentions Are Good

I wasn't expecting a torrential downpour as I walked out of the club after working out tonight. (I'm down 15 lbs., by the way.) I guess it's a good thing. Although I saw several sprinklers working hard to water the grass while the rain poured. I'm not irked that much by sprinklers running in the rain. The water is being replenished at the same time. Now, sprinklers that somehow end up aimed directly into the street bug the hell out of me.

Centrum Silver has a new ad campaign for it's Men's vitamins. They are just a little sexist. I'm not talking women in tight clothing and sexist poses. The commercials are pointing out that the viamins are for "just for men." The two ads I've seen also suggest the following things are "just for men:" Golf, television, watches and steak or possibly hamburgers (that one was on the radio). Putting aside the fact that studies show multi-vitaimins don't work, and might actually be bad for you, can we stop pretending these are things that are only liked by men? I hate golf, my wife loves steak more than I do, and TV just a little less, and, the Chicago song notwithstanding, I'm pretty sure everyone likes to know what time it is.

There's a TV show suggestion I've been meaning to make. "Better Off Ted," on ABC. Despite the stupid name, it's a pretty funny show. Jay Harrington charismatically plays Ted, a good guy who is head of R&D at the cartoonishly evil company Veridian Dynamics. (Click the link. It's indicitive of the humor in the show.) His boss, played wonderfully by Portia de Rossi, is a strong businesswoman with no empathy or ability to interact with other people on a personal level. There are plenty of quirky characters, like the research scientists who seem to venerate Ted. The products created also lead to plenty of humor (A hair replacement product ends up making a desk grow hair). The company's poor treatment of the employees is also often played for laughs, although we're not talking Dilbert here. We're talking freezing people in cryogenic chambers.

The humor is similar to "Scrubs" without the fantasy sequences. There are only a few episodes left this summer, but it's worth checking out.

Of course, if you like vampires, "True Blood" is a superior product to "Twilight," and also on HBO, "Hung" looks pretty promising so far. And of course, "The State" is out on DVD in case you forgot to go buy it.

Finally, I watched the movie "Waiting ..." tonight. It was fine, but it gets extra points for having a character point at Dane Cook and call him the worst person ever.